I'd planned on taking a good 3 months off work after the birth of my DD to enjoy our time together BUT... the company I worked for went bankrupt unexpectedly and I lost my job about 2 months ago. I'm lucky- I have another job lined up- but I'll be going back to work much sooner. I want to continue to BFing when my new job starts, but when do I start pumping and offering the bottle? I'm due 12/26 but this is my first baby, I'm already anxious, and trying to plan (probably my A type personality too!) I'll be working 3 15 hr shifts, maybe more. There is a lactation consultant at the local hospital but want to see what everyone has for their real-life experiences.

I have gone back to work after each of my kids between 6 and 8 weeks. i have learned m8re each time.

i have the best freezer stock and supply with DD. this is waht I did/do.

pretty much from the beginging I feed one side only. I start oumping the side not eaten on a couple times a day, usuallymorning, at about 3 weeks. I have DH give a bottle about once a week or somstarting at 3 weeks. That has worked well for me for all three kids.

(with the first especially i didnt start pumping extra early enough and had no freezer supply and by 5 months I wasnt responding to the pump and had tomstart suplementing.)

this time I eat oatmeal with flax every morn7ng, drink t8ns of water and pump on the weekends too.

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wife and mom-- no other special labels. Just trying to do the best I can.

i start day 3 as i went back to work after 7 weeks. i pump the side not being nursed on. i do this at every feeding (every 3 hours or so) i just went back to work yesterday and have several hundred oz stored up. i get about 24 oz a day on one breast.

With both I started pumping on day 2. :-) I make LOTS of milk and wanted to take advantage. I fed baby on both sides and pumped after for ten minutes. With a double mechanical pump. Once my milk came in I would do an entire feeding on one breast, then pump off the other until it was empty, plus usually 2-3 minutes after the milk stopped to encourage more milk. Next feeding if switch. I didn't pump at "night" (Btwn 10pm & 6am.

With my last baby, I was pumping for another newborn as well, so that's why I was pumping so much. There is a "science" or "art" to pumping, and lots of different tweaks you can make to your pumping routine to either increase or decrease milk production. Most important is to find the right size of cup pieces (phalanges?). You would really benefit from meeting with an IBCLC, who can help you make a plan and keep in touch for the first couple weeks to troubleshoot and help prevent problems before they crop up.

I started pumping as soon as my milk came in both times. I was so engorged it was just more comfortable to pump some. I had a great freezer stash by the time I went back to work. I would start offering the bottle a couple times a week around week 2-3 as long as baby is nursing well by that time. I also always pump before bed and before work in the morning to make sure I am emptied out and to add to the freezer stash. I had such a freezer stash with my first he had breastmilk in his sippy cup for 2 full months after I weaned!

DD1 and DD2, I introduced the pump at 3 weeks to get ready for starting to pump while at work.

DD3-5...right in the hospital as soon as they could bring me the pump. They were so tiny and any drop of colostrum the better. My milk was the first thing to get to them...even before I could hold them the first time.

DD had latch issues and was losing weight fast as well as being jaundiced. I started pumping at day 3 after a pretty traumatic birth and supplementing for a few days. Now she won't latch at all and I exclusively pump.

What worked well for my second baby was that I began pumping right away both to build up the freezer stash and to "trick" my body into thinking that my baby's needs were more than they actually were during the period when my milk actually came in. After a while, when I wasn't at work I started nursing almost exclusively on one side, but go lax about consistently pumping the other side. After a while production on my non-nursing side went way way down. Around the nine month mark, this was a problem because I wasn't able to pump what my baby needed, which hadn't been a problem with baby number 1.